The descent into the Silent Archives felt like walking into a labyrinth of shadows. The air was thick with the scent of decaying parchment and cold stone, but as the four companions dug through the crates of intelligence, they found a frustrating void.
They spent hours under the flickering light of mana-lamps, sifting through hundreds of reports. They found financial ledgers that were perfectly balanced, military manifests that were impeccably logged, and letters from Councilors that were nothing but mundane political chatter.
"There's nothing," Killian growled, throwing a stack of papers onto the table. "No secret rosters. No signed confessions. It's too clean. Even an honest man makes mistakes in his bookkeeping. This is sterile."
"That's the evidence," Alaric muttered, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. "The High Priest didn't just teach them how to kill; he taught them how to hide. They aren't leaving a paper trail because they know we are looking for one."
Seraphina pushed the documents aside, her eyes glowing with a cold, focused light. "If we can't find them with our eyes, we find them with our souls. We've lived through this nightmare once before. We know the smell of a traitor."
They cleared the table and began to categorize the names not by what the papers said, but by what their intuition told them. They relied on the invisible threads of memory from their past lives and the "wrong" feeling someone gave them in the present.
The "Least Suspicious" (The Noisy Ones)The "Very Suspicious" (The Quiet Ones)Those who openly complain about the Emperor. (Too loud to be true conspirators.)Those who have been too helpful, always smiling, always present at the reconstruction.Nobles with gambling debts. (Easily manipulated, but not leaders.)Individuals who were "missing" during the same hours in both lives, even without an explanation.Knights who are simply lazy. (Too incompetent to be cultists.)Men whose eyes don't match their words—the ones who look at Seraphina with a lingering, hidden hunger.Eveline closed her eyes, her hands hovering over the list of names. "I can feel a dissonance," she whispered. "In the first life, there was a man who stood at the back of the execution crowd. He didn't throw a stone, and he didn't cheer. He just... watched. I see his name here now, as a chief architect for the Festival of Light."
"Lord Valerius," Seraphina said, the name tasting like poison. "He's the one who suggested the 'Siphon Stones' be used as decorative centerpieces to 'bless' the city."
Alaric nodded, his Holy Knight instincts screaming. "He's been too perfect. He's the one who insisted I stay in the palace for my 'rest' while the guard shifts were changed. He wasn't caring for me; he was neutralizing me."
There was no signature on a traitorous document to prove it. There were no hidden black robes in a chest. But as they looked at the "Very Suspicious" pile, the four of them felt a collective chill.
"We don't have enough to bring to the Emperor for an arrest," Killian noted, checking his daggers. "If we accuse Valerius without proof, the Council will turn on the throne."
"Then we don't use the law," Seraphina said, standing up and tightening her belt. "We use our intuition to bait them. We know where they will be, and we know what they want. They want to see us fail."
She looked at her companions—the Knight, the Saintess, and the Commander. They were no longer looking for ink on paper; they were looking for the flicker of fear in a traitor's eye.